The Right Approach: American Approach

The Right Approach: American Approach

After the dust settled from World Championships we saw what decks shined brighter than others. Classic Temur Energy ended up taking the win with William Jensen piloting the deck. The other top decks in the field were Ramunap Red (no surprise) and 4 Color energy splashing black for Scarab God. A new deck that emerged through worlds was UB Control. UB has a better matchup against aggro decks than the classic UW Approach deck. From all the decks that were played at worlds not a single copy of an approach deck was played. That was quite surprising to me. The top 16 decks consist of:

Ramunap Red: 5

Temur Energy: 4

UB Control: 4

Four Color Energy: 2

Grixis Control: 1

Pro Tour Ixlan had somewhat of a same field as worlds did. They had 9 Energy Midrange decks in the top 16 and 5 Mardu/Ramunap Red decks. This is what the format is starting to look like until the new set Rivals of Ixalan is released.

Now how can we get the upperhand on these decks? Out of the five decks, probably the hardest matchups for approach decks are: Ramunap Red and UB Control. Ramunap Red is blistering fast and hard for us to keep up in a UW shell. All we have are Farm//Market which is late three drop kill spell and board wipes starting at four mana. Against UB Control they have discard in the sideboard that just rips our hand apart. Also, a timely lost legacy against us is our downfall when they successfully cast it. What can we do to combat these decks? Well, let’s throw in another color to make it easier for us to handle the Ramunap Red matchup. Here is the deck I put together:

American Approach :

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/831074#paper

Maindeck (60)

3 Opt

4 Censor

2 Essence Scatter

4 Harnessed Lightning

1 Pull from Tomorrow

3 Supreme Will

4 Glimmer of Genius

3 Settle the Wreckage

3 Fumigate

3 Approach of the Second Sun

2 Search for Azcanta

3 Cast Out

2 Evolving Wilds

4 Glacial Fortress

3 Inspiring Vantage

4 Irrigated Farmland

4 Island

1 Mountain

3 Plains

4 Spirebluff Canal

Sideboard (15)

1 The Locust God

2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

2 Magma Spray

1 Essence Scatter

4 Negate

1 Disallow

2 Sweltering Suns

2 Metallurgic Summonings

So let’s go over the main deck. The card draw package consists of: 3 Opt, 4 Glimmer of Genius, and 3 Supreme Will. We also have Search for Azcanta that can help filter our draws and later on in the game help us look for spells. Our counters consist of: 4 Censor, 3 Supreme Will, and 2 Essence Scatter. Censors lets us gets out early counterspell action by force spiking our opponent and later on in the game when they don’t have that much use you can just cycle them away for one blue mana which is great. Supreme will gives us two options. We can counter any spell if our opponent doesn’t pay the three extra mana or we get to look through the top 4 cards of our library and grab a card we need during a certain matchup. Lastly we have Essence Scatter. Essence Scatter helps us our against Ramanup Red as well as countering those annoying Bristling Hydras in the energy decks. Our kill spell package consist of: 4 Harnessed Lighting, 3 Settle the Wreckage, 3 Fumigate, and 3 Cast Out. Abrade is a utility card that can deal 3 damage to a creature or destroy an artifact. We have 4 Harnessed Lightings that helps us get kills turn two and late game with our Glimmer of Genius’s giving us 2 energy each we can end up killing bigger creatures. Settle the Wreckage helps us get that turn four sudo board wipe against aggro decks. Also since it exiles creatures it gets rid of pesky Hazorets, Scarab Gods, and Earthshaker Khenras coming back to bite us. Fumigate is our turn 5 boardwipe that gains us life for each creature that died from fumigate which is awesome. Lastly, Cast Out is just a catch all against annoying cards like Chandras, Glory Bringers and Anointed Processions. Lastly, our namesake card Approach of the Second Sun.

Wrapping up, I think this deck has potential. It covers the early game creatures with kill spells and later on during the game with board wipes. Against control we side in more counters and try to sneak in a different kind of win with Chandra. Leave a comment if you are running something similar to this and tell me what build you are running!